GAGGING

… and stretch! Down, touch the toes! Jogging on the spot … two … three … four! And star jumps … two … three … four! And … oh, hello there. Sorry about that, reader – you caught the Fiver just doing a little warming-up with a mid-1980s fitness video. Big night for us, you see, in Big Cup. After all these years, we've finally been called into the matchday squad. It's all down to José Mourinho, who when talking about Chelsea's approach to tonight's win-or-bust-but-probably-bust encounter with PSG, said: "We have to be at 7.45 with a smile on our faces." And what could put a smile on a footballer's face better than a free semi-humorous tea-timely football email? Our moment had arrived! Cometh the hour, cometh the Fiver (so long as that hour is five o'clock in the afternoon – give or take – and it's a weekday)!

So we've been practising our favourite football jokes, including:

• What's Luis Suárez's favourite hot drink?
Penaltea!
• Why did Cinderella get dropped?
Because she kept running away from the ball!
•Sunderland's defending in the second half last night!

This pre-match japery is certainly great news for the Fiver's chances of a lucrative five-year contract at Stamford Bridge, but it's terrible news for the increasingly superannuated Glenn Hoddle. Barely a week ago the former Spurs and Chelsea manager lost his rag on Sky because Tottenham, in the moments before Liverpool tonked them four-zip, were "too relaxed, too flimsy, chatting away with no steel" while one player was spotted "leaning against the wall with two hands behind his back". "It's been a long time since Glenn Hoddle's managed a football team and the game has moved on quite significantly," sniffed Tim Sherwood at the time, and barely nine days later Mourinho is publicly ordering his players to take to the tunnel with the kind of attitude that would make Hoddle literally spit his dentures into the pureed roast dinner. (If you count whatever he told his players to do at White Hart Lane yesterday, this means Sherwood has been right about something football-related twice in the space of 10 days, which means we need to more or less completely reconsider our opinion of him.)

It's just as well Chelsea will be sneaking in a few giggles before kick-off tonight, as odds are they'll be sobbing by the final whistle, what with having to overcome Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi, the kind of financial might that would make Roman Abramovich feel a little hard-up and a two-goal first-leg deficit in tonight's big match.

Nobody, however, is laughing right now in France, where the Fiver's favourite bit of pre-match media coverage involved L'Equipe reviewing the British newspaper reporting of the build-up only to conclude, sniffily, that "very little space was devoted to PSG". If Mourinho finds the same thing to be true as he peruses tomorrow's back pages over breakfast in the morning, he'll probably still have that smile on his face. And if he doesn't, the Fiver has a hilarious breakfast-and-French-people-themed gag that might help:

• Why do the French only eat one egg for breakfast?
Because one egg is un oeuf!

Sorry. You should have waited until we'd finished our warm-ups – we'd have been absolutely hilarious. José, do we still get that contract? José? José?

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The players can have normal [$ex] during the World Cup. Usually normal [$ex] is done in a balanced way, but some like to perform acrobatics. And that, no" – Big Phil takes the pressure of Brazil's players having to perform at the World Cup.

FIVER LETTERS

"It is a little surprising to me that I have read nothing in the Fiver about the rise and rise of my team, Leicester City. I may have missed it. My company sent me on one of those time management courses (TM101) so now I have to read the Fiver in a 10-second skim (in view of its importance to my life: the local paper gets 30 seconds and the dog gets a 90-second walk). However I have another time management course (TM102) coming up, so even a 10-second skim may be cut to nothing. In view of that, is there any chance the forthcoming Fiver stories of the Leicester City player revolts, relegation battle and manager sacking be slotted in a little early, say over say the next week or so? Ta" – Rod de Lisle.

"I find it disgusting that you would subject David Wall to such humiliation by rolling over the winner of the prizeless letter o' the day for his admittedly passable missive (yesterday's Fiver letter). How could he not be the winner? His was the only letter of the day, therefore must have 'won' the letter of the day competition. Quite apart from you doing this to show others that they need to send in more interesting thoughts, surely it shows your readers that you would rather have no letters sent to you at all than one referencing a BBC3 show called 'the Call Centre'. Hang on …" – Josh Cryer.

"I have to feel sorry for David. I'm sure he has to put up with the same drivel that arrives from the Fiver in my inbox every weekday so I would like to offer him my very own prizeless letter o' the day award. Kudos Dave (I can call you Dave right?)" – Anthony Burton.

"Now I know how Torres and Ba must feel. You're a cruel man, José" – David Wall.

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they still aren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.

BITS AND BOBS

Pep Guardiola has promised to buy every hack a pint of mood-enhancer if Wayne Rooney doesn't recover from toe-knack in time to face Bayern in Big Cup tomorrow. "He is going to play, 100%. I bet you a big, big glass of beer … he is going to play. And [Antonio] Valencia too!" he howled.

Jay Rodriguez will play no part in England's failure to get out of the World Cup group stage after being ruled out for six months with severe knee-knack.

One for the diary: England will face Republic O'Ireland on 7 June 2015 in the first meeting of the sides in Dublin since a bunch of rioting numpties forced the abandonment of a meaningless friendly at Landsdowne Road.

Despite having played football for 113 years, Sylvain Distin still hasn't got his head round how foolish some football supporters can be. "The funny thing is some [Everton fans] would rather we don't get [Big Cup football] as long as [Liverpool] don't win the league. It's mad," he vigorously head-scratched.

Dynamo Moscow have fired head coach Dan Petrescu. "At today's meeting, with Dan Petrescu present, we told the team that we had ended his contract through mutual consent," cheered cold-hearted club suit Guram Adzhoev.

The narrow vote in favour of a Hull Tigers rebrand in Assam Allam's face-saving paper-posting exercise will have no bearing on the FA's decision to recommend that the club doesn't rub out 109 years of history.

Michael Bridges, 86, will retire at the end of the flamin' A-League season. "When you play professionally for as long as I have you see the highs and lows of football," parped the Newcastle Jets forward.

And all eight players who were injured when lightning struck the pitch of a lower-league match in Austria between FC Sillian and FC Notsch on Sunday have made full recoveries after resting up in hospital.